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Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Jun. 30th, 2025 08:22 pmI saw Godspeed live for the fourth time this weekend (#5 will be this fall) and it was a soul-scrubbing experience as always. I also brought my partner for the first time, who has just recently come around on them. It was fun to hear his impressions because most of his concert experiences have been EDM, where it's a very light, fun, party atmosphere. Godspeed shows are not that. A Godspeed show is like standing outside in a hurricane. The sound is so huge that it feels like it could hold you upright. The band doesn't address the audience. They barely even look at the audience. And while Boston concertgoers are notoriously stoic, I've never seen a crowd fall into a trance quite the way theirs do.
It's a shame, because Blaise Bailey Finnegan III is just an incandescently beautiful song, but the person in the field recording is so obnoxious to me that I only listen to it pretty rarely. But it kicked like a mule live. I feel really lucky that I got to hear it, because they don't play it super often.
And I actually ran into a high school friend there, who I hadn't seen or talked to for 15 years. He was one of those people who was so incredibly smart that that's mostly what people noticed about him, and it really overshadowed how fucking cool he was on top of that. And he's thriving! He's a lefty economics professor at a major university! He and another long-lost friend and I are going to see if we can fully catch up next time we're all in town. Sometimes I'm just so struck with pride at how many of the people I've cared about are out there doing incredible things. And I can't even really regret that I was wearing my "I only pretend to listen to Hildegard von Bingen to get pussy" t-shirt when he spotted me in the crowd, because I really have not changed that much since high school. Except, I hope, I'm less of a shithead now.
It's a shame, because Blaise Bailey Finnegan III is just an incandescently beautiful song, but the person in the field recording is so obnoxious to me that I only listen to it pretty rarely. But it kicked like a mule live. I feel really lucky that I got to hear it, because they don't play it super often.
And I actually ran into a high school friend there, who I hadn't seen or talked to for 15 years. He was one of those people who was so incredibly smart that that's mostly what people noticed about him, and it really overshadowed how fucking cool he was on top of that. And he's thriving! He's a lefty economics professor at a major university! He and another long-lost friend and I are going to see if we can fully catch up next time we're all in town. Sometimes I'm just so struck with pride at how many of the people I've cared about are out there doing incredible things. And I can't even really regret that I was wearing my "I only pretend to listen to Hildegard von Bingen to get pussy" t-shirt when he spotted me in the crowd, because I really have not changed that much since high school. Except, I hope, I'm less of a shithead now.
